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CNN: US prepares charges to seek arrest of Julian Assange

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That's an interesting way to say "he was right all along".
He wasn't right all along you loon. He's been hiding this whole time and now suddenly out of nowhere this proves home right? If he were right he would have gotten got long before it ever got to this point.

This just gives him ammo to use for shills that will back him regardless to scream about his bullshit intellectual integrating​ and moral veracity.
 
Oh FFS. Why? Never mind that I would really like to see the legal reasoning behind this, any decision to attempt prosecution will just ensure that Assange will never leave his hole in the embassy. This will torpedo any hope we could ever have had that Assange would eventually stand trial for the real charges he's facing in Sweden and the U.K.

Yeah, pretty much this.

I don't like Assange, but publishing those leaks should NOT be a crime in a democracy. The accusations of molestation and rape should go through the full legal process, though
 

Chumley

Banned
Pretty much. Assange has been hiding out in that embassy under the pretext that the US is totes gonna for realz any day now charge him therefore he has to avoid answering to Swedish sexual assault charges because Sweden is just a puppet of the US.

Now he gets to be all high and mighty.

He can't be high and mighty because he caped for Trump the entire election. I don't believe for a second he's now going to be as vicious on him as he was HRC, his Russian masters won't tolerate it.
 
oh only US citizens has free speech now? Well that sucks for me.

I'm confused as to what your point is. You were saying that it's a shame that the US doesn't value free speech. I told you that the US's rights to free speech only covers US citizens. Assange is not a US citizen. He doesn't get covered by our free speech laws. And a person cannot actively engage in an attack on our democratic sovereignty and claim free speech, especially if they're not covered under the protections of our Constitution to begin with.
 
Wikileaks is basically a russian tool now, so good. They are treating it as a hostile intelligence agency, which it is. Wikileaks already squandered any benefit of the doubt they might have had since inception.

It makes no sense coming from Trump, unless he's an idiot who thinks doing things like this and striking Syria will kill any of the smoke around him. It won't, the FBI doesn't care, and now he's opened himself up to Assange going rogue. Not to mention further alienating his base that worshipped Assange.
Oh okay. Thanks for responding I was genuinely confused there!

Hope some good comes out of this.
 

Nivash

Member
First off he isn't a US Citizen.

But I don't think we need to be the one arresting him. This fuck has shit he's actually wanted for. That's the whole reason he's chillin in and Embassy in the first place.

The Constitution doesn't restricted itself to citizens. The rights are "self-evident" and apply to all people. If Assange is prosecuted by a US court, he enjoys constitutional protection.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/daniel...ect-non-citizens-judges-say-yes/#b586e214f1de

I can only imagine that the prosecutors are attempting some formed of tortured espionage charge to get around this.
 
Wikileaks is basically a russian tool now, so good. They are treating it as a hostile intelligence agency, which it is. Wikileaks already squandered any benefit of the doubt they might have had since inception.

Whether your actions are beneficial to Putin or not should not be grounds for a legal case, if they weren't inherently illegal
 

cameron

Member
On the free speech argument:
In his speech last week, Pompeo rejected that characterization and said Assange is afforded constitutional free speech protections.

"Julian Assange has no First Amendment freedoms. He's sitting in an Embassy in London. He's not a US citizen," Pompeo said.


It's still a bit of a sticky wicket.
Assange remains holed up in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, seeking to avoid an arrest warrant on rape charges in Sweden. In recent months, US officials had focused on the possibility that a new government in Ecuador would expel Assange and he could be arrested. But the left-leaning presidential candidate who won the recent election in the South American nation has promised to continue to harbor Assange.
Curse you left-leaning Lenín Moreno!
 

jorma

is now taking requests
Free speech doesn't mean what y'all think it means.

It means you cannot be arrested, for your words being critical of government.

Assange is leaking international secrets and spreading sedition.

Totally different things.

sedition, lul.

And he wasn't leaking anything, he published the leaks. Two completely different things.
 

jorma

is now taking requests
He wasn't right all along you loon. He's been hiding this whole time and now suddenly out of nowhere this proves home right? If he were right he would have gotten got long before it ever got to this point.

This just gives him ammo to use for shills that will back him regardless to scream about his bullshit intellectual integrating​ and moral veracity.

personal insults now, nice.

cheers.
 

KHarvey16

Member
Lots of crow to eat for the crowd who called him delusional because he feared this.

Unfortunate that the US doesn't value free speech as much as they claim they do.

Bullshit. The delusional claims from Assange were regarding secret indictments the US would spring on him once he surrendered himself to Sweden to face trial for rape. The reasoning was some bizarre belief that Sweden would immediately extradite him unlike the U.K. or wherever else he might go. It was and still is dumb.
 
About damn time. He is an international criminal and deserves to have the book thrown at him. Sure some of the stuff he exposed were things I feel needed to be placed out in the open but there are things he and wikileaks have released that put people's lives in danger and destabilize regions around the world for what? The shock factor and personal gain? He needs to pay for what he is done and stop hiding away in his artificial sanctuary.
 

KingV

Member
Correct me if I'm wrong, but Assange isn't a US citizen to my knowledge. He doesn't get protections under the Constitution. He's an enemy of the state.

I don't like Assange, but I can't quite figure out how somebody who never set foot in the US, and isn't a US citizen can be charged with a crime in the US.

It's a tough call for me to say that a foreign citizen on foreign soil should be beholden to American classification laws. On the flip side, if some dude in the Russian military sent me classified Russian documents, and I post them inn GAF. Would it be reasonably for me to be expedited? Would it be reasonable for the US to charge foreign heads of state with crimes for ordering intelligence operations on the US?

Im not even saying this is wrong... but tyrying to understand where that line is drawn.
 

jorma

is now taking requests
I'm confused as to what your point is. You were saying that it's a shame that the US doesn't value free speech. I told you that the US's rights to free speech only covers US citizens. Assange is not a US citizen. He doesn't get covered by our free speech laws. And a person cannot actively engage in an attack on our democratic sovereignty and claim free speech, especially if they're not covered under the protections of our Constitution to begin with.

But it doesn't apply only to US citizens.
 

Boke1879

Member
The Constitution doesn't restricted itself to citizens. The rights are "self-evident" and apply to all people. If Assange is prosecuted by a US court, he enjoys constitutional protection.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/daniel...ect-non-citizens-judges-say-yes/#b586e214f1de

I can only imagine that the prosecutors are attempting some formed of tortured espionage charge to get around this.

Fair and I was wrong.

But I think what he's doing shouldn't be protected. Trying to influence and election and if he's revealing secrets etc.

Also didn't he publish the names of a lot of people and their sexual orientation?

But still he should be arrested for the crime he's already hiding from.
 

KHarvey16

Member
BTW the OP should include more of the article. The sentences after where it cuts off are important.

The US view of WikiLeaks and Assange began to change after investigators found what they believe was proof that WikiLeaks played an active role in helping Edward Snowden, a former NSA analyst, disclose a massive cache of classified documents.
 
Is he really gonna live the rest of his live inside an embassy? Better than prison, I suppose, but its still a prison in a way. How long before you get cabin fever?
 

jorma

is now taking requests
Bullshit. The delusional claims from Assange were regarding secret indictments the US would spring on him once he surrendered himself to Sweden to face trial for rape. The reasoning was some bizarre belief that Sweden would immediately extradite him unlike the U.K. or wherever else he might go. It was and still is dumb.

It's not bizarre considering Sweden had already done exactly that.

I'm guessing this is surfacing now because Sweden is going to drop the charges and they wont get him that way.
This case should have been dismissed years ago, there's literally no case.
 

NYR

Member
oh only US citizens has free speech now? Well that sucks for me.
giphy.gif
 

Boke1879

Member
It's not bizarre considering Sweden had already done exactly that.

I'm guessing this is surfacing now because Sweden is going to drop the charges and they wont get him that way.
This case should have been dismissed years ago, there's literally no case.

Then why is he hiding?
 
Reminder: He's already wanted for sex crimes elsewhere, so it's not like this changes his situation in terms of how screwed he is while holed up in the embassy.

Going from villain of Republican to villain of Democrats to arrest sought by Republican administration who lavishly praised what he was doing but 6 months ago is pretty damn impressive, though.
 

Unison

Member
Sessions spoke at the press conference, so he's not being tied to the Russian leaks by the Trump administration (or else Sessions could not be part of this investigation).

Obviously he's tied to the Trump collusion, though.

Part of me suspects this is a pre-emptive strike by the WH to get Assange in a position where he could be offered protections or pardons.

... but if they are going after Assange like this, that suggests they are feeling major pressure.
 

Nivash

Member
BTW the OP should include more of the article. The sentences after where it cuts off are important.

Oh, so that's their angle. Still sounds fishy. There's an extremely thin line between Wikileak's role in distributing the information and the role of the regular news agencies in doing the same, unless they actively helped Snowden decrypt the files or something.
 

KHarvey16

Member
It's not bizarre considering Sweden had already done exactly that.

I'm guessing this is surfacing now because Sweden is going to drop the charges and they wont get him that way.
This case should have been dismissed years ago, there's literally no case.

The charges likely aren't being dropped. Stop trying to justify delusion.
 
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